Who will carry the torch of literature in the West, after the current banner of great writers dies? Pynchon, DeLillo...

It shall be me.

Kolsti (no troll)

haha yes my discordbro

Hello Kolsti.

o.o wtf

Me too. Good luck, lads, and I'll see you in the Canon someday.

And you.

third world english speakers will write the great novels of the future. obese virgin gamers will not

yeah, that's why i'll be the zeitgust.

...

thanks me too

No one. Literature can finally die.

my diary desu

Evan Dara

>Dolan

Houellebecq?

This is considerably better than the first

Good luck man, see you there

Thanks, one day i'll finally retackle the piece. I think it'll be much better.

Marlon James.

DFW

This is a surprisingly good post user, thanks for writing it up. Rather than greentext some authors at II in response, I want to ask what it is that makes Cormac or Pynchon "Western Literature." Not that a I think this is a dubious thing to say--just want to understand it more thoroughly. Maybe then we could set out some criteria for what a younger author would need to be doing in order to be on the path toward assuming the mantle.

Or maybe looking for criterion is beside the point, in which case I'll ask, what are we looking for?

Probably two or three lurkers on Veeky Forums.

They'll probably explore the emotional plight of the individual in a world that tries to apply a rational scientific doctrine to things we do not yet fully comprehend.

Me

We'll never know because no one will admit to posting here.

Well, actually, since your candor disarms me, I'll admit that I wrote the OP half in-jest while high on cocaine, and so there's a few exaggerations and embellishments, particularly re: the death of the postmodern doorstopper, which I still think is hackneyed, to be sure, but not quite yet dead. Anyway, I happen to think that the Canon is a doubtful concept, but is anyway useful as a rhetorical structure. The point being that the current generation of young writers (I mean really under 35) in what though admittedly are juvenalia and first efforts, have yet produced nothing that more than just accretes upon what has come before. There's imitation and homage, but few risks are taken, and the ones that are are so extreme structurally or narratively that they alienate the reader and gimmick the work. As for what we're looking for, well, that's the question isn't it, what are we looking for? What is to be done? I don't know, and even if I did, I would be foolish to share it with the similarly ambitioned. But I don't, although I have a feeling it (that first luminary work of our age) will be a dramatic halt to present literary narratives.

Also, re: "What makes them Western Literature" - formal merit.

Its me bitch.

...

>scarlett johannsson

JUST YOUUUUUUU

AND EEEEYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE

TOGETHEEEEEEER
RRRRRRRRRRRRR

FORRREVVVEEERRRRRR

IN LOOOVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEE

pic related

Lmfao. The profundity and the style over substance meme is the best. Strictly for the retarded.

We don't need it to be carried any further. Seal the gates of the canon and read what is in there again.

not james hurley you fuck

Some fresh copypasta here boys

Those are two contrary approaches you insane faggot

that's me, follow my twitter
twitter.com/hurleyjacoba

Why don't you write something better, faggot?

Probably writing short stories. Poe was write. Real literature should be read in a single sitting.

what's your book about?

Currently I'm working on a short story for publication. The Golden Fleece is mostly an idea I have for a novel (there's an old draft circulating around, but it's BAD). Generally the novel is about college students who travel to Armenia to fuck prostitutes, but tells the disillusionment and life of a student who decides to break from the fraternity they're in and try to move to Armenia. I'm working on it, estimated publication 2019.

That fragment in the top right corner is some great material. You have potential.

>We can safely dismiss everyone
Alright, then, thread's over, I guess. Good work OP.

I saw something just like this last week in the New Yorker.

would you mind sharing the link? I'd like to see if it's similar to what I have in mind

Honest question, because I don't read much contemporary fiction: do any writers currently writing try to touch eternity?

I guess that's kind of a Reddit thing to say, but what I mean by it is, do any current writers attempt to transcend their particular social, political, and cultural concerns and write things that might last in relevance beyond a few decades? It seems to me that this is one particularly reliable way to be a great writer. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Melville all manage to do this, which is why we can relate to their work all these centuries later. Who are some contemporary writers that seem interested in this kind of transcendence?

south america

Probably not this faggot.

Mia Couto and Louise Erdich are still going strong. So is Olga Tokarczuk. Magdalena Tulli's only a few years older than Franzen. Yoko Tawada is Japanese but lives and writes in Germany.

Something that I've always wondered is whether the artist was aware that his art would last millennia. Obviously many great artists had egos to match, but was Michaelangelo more aware when carving The David, or Bussey when composing Claire de Lune, of lasting recognition than any of their now anonymous peers? How can you even be aware of what society will value in a few years, let alone a few centuries?

It seems to be the case that if you're truly that good, you know it. Keats knew it. Joyce knew it.

Writing about, or otherwise creating art about, universal themes seems to be a key way to ensure your works survive your death.

Creating art about death, love, God, money, nature, etc. Anything about politics or contemporary affairs, unless it touches on something higher (e.g. Hamlet) tends to become irrelevant quickly.

That said, a lot of it is pure happenstance. There are many poets, philosophers and playwrights, particularly those from Ancient Greece and Rome, whose works have been all but lost. We might have fragments of them, or nothing whatsoever. A vast swathe of artists considered geniuses in their own time have been forgotten utterly.

>americans
kill yourself

>that Death Grips lyric outta nowhere

I don't think he's long for the world tbqh. Either the long hard dick of cancer get's him or an Islamist pops him off

is no one else triggered by OP saying the Beats were an embarrassment to literary history?

The whole thing is triggering honestly

im triggered he barely knows contemp lit beyond burger memes yet resorts to unbearably pompous conjectures like this:

>I should think the farcical course our history has taken should serve plenty for inspiration and urgency, yet it seems nobody from my crop of men (I am in my twenties) has yet said anything really worth saying at all.

I'm triggered that he used the word 'urgency' twice in the same post.

Every generation needs a Tao Lin. He's the Hemingway and Kerouac of the Millennial generation, a kind of record keeper. We won't have a new Faulkner or Joyce, so to speak, until someone with writing abilities get over their muh nihilism and depicts the Internet generation with the same reverence those guys did to their eras.

Definitely one of the best contemporary authors, but see Not timeless enough.

Thanks! I'll try to keep it in the upcoming revision.
Haha, your the first to say anything about it. Earlier in my writing I often resorted to quotes when I couldn't figure out how to say it myself.

i would aim for it, but i'm more concerned about surviving (food, shelter, etc.) with a min. wage job after being told all my life i'm a "good child" and "smart" and "will do well" when none of that actually makes the money to pay the bills. even having electricity and internet is tenuous in more than half the planet's human settlements, so it's not necessarily a measure of "just move, you can haz monies in murica."

everyone seems to want the highest quality writing and entertainment but the amount of work you have to put in to rise from the bottom, just to the point where your primary concern is your craft and not survivalism in the "concrete jung-le" is difficult as all fuck when you have no support. top that off with the people who dismissed hard work all your life, because they haven't the time or empathy to give a damn when they're barely surviving themselves, and add sprinkles a la no skills or guide to improving your life to the point you're beyond survivalist-scarcity processing.

>as i see it from the bottom, "this generation" is split among the tribes of those who had hard work ingrained in them and those who had be smart ingrained in them
>i'm no bobby fisher, but imagine if that guy was stuck at a call center or as a bowling alley attendant and couldn't move past basic needs to get to chess; that's where a lot of people seem to be stuck

i think the worst part is that people tend not to recognize that "my" basic needs are different from another person's. someone reading this might think my needs are easily solvable but their basics are a solid family, or seeing the results of their impact in the world, which can only come long after survivalism.

>we end up dismissing one another's lives and problems because we're on different levels and can't comprehend how someone could be stuck where they are
>instead of building our own empathy to understand these other characters and their flaws irl, we're expecting the authors of these characters to hand-feed us relatability

we're essentially fucked from the ground up; assuming a spiritual definition of "earth" as the soil we have to work to grow the seeds of self, our soil is largely barren, or we start in the wrong spots and don't recognize that our neighbour has a good, consistent source of water and we have irrigation canals and dykes, while the guy or girl yonder has tools to till soil but her soil is rock hard.

>but i'm also a dumbshit and an autist
>so nothing i say is of value until i'm either a publicly-acclaimed figure or have thousands to millions of dollars to pour into certifications so it looks like i know what i'm talking about

Get out and explore the world, faggot.
>pic related

It takes her 10 years to write a novel. She's got 2 left in her at most.

Hot take: this is a bad place to ask. I know Veeky Forums is likely to share views similar to the OP, but that also means that much of Veeky Forums doesn't care to read contemporary fiction outside of the already established memebers (typo intentional) you posted on the OP.
However, if under 35 isn't the requirement, Houellebecq would be a good choice. He's flouting the current trends and is writing serious fiction.

We're in a strange situation t b h
We've nothing but leftovers- Harold Bloom, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Wilbur, Edmund White, John Ashbery, john banville

I was posting earlier in the thread, but I've actually had cause to think about it some more, and it occurs to me that being a great writer may require being timeless AND timely.

Take Moby-Dick, for example. It is in part an extremely detailed depiction of an industry that hasn't existed for more than a century now. You can read Moby-Dick and more or less learn everything worth knowing about the practice of hunting whales for whale oil. It's a snapshot of a vanished world, one which isn't terribly relevant to most of its readers today.

On the other hand, in the midst of depicting whaling, it also, of course, manages to muse about God, the universe, the transcendent, madness, genius, and a huge chunk of the Western Canon. The reason we read it today is because it manages to take something specific and of its time and universalize it. It's both of its own time and beyond it, and maybe that's the key.

Stars thing isn't half bad, rest is awful

Maybe people who get stuck in the minimum wage trap think that they're smart, but in reality, are neither smart nor industrious.

It's very disheartening to me, the pieces of fiction from this decade I think earned the distinction of "literary merit" the most would not only not be considered as such by anyone else who actually cares for literature, but in fact, would barely be considered literature by the average person.

I'm reminded of my favorite book, The Story Of The Eye, who may not be part of the highest echelons of the western canon but it's certainly one of the most widely respected pieces of literary erotica. When it was released, i was told, that it was seen as just pornography, before getting more of a cult status and now being considered serious literature.

If we continue this trend of "anything can be art" then i say this: either allow anything into the canon regardless of it's dubious status as even literature (much less literature with actual merit) or close it forever to prevent Tao Lin and similar lads turn it into nothing. Either let everything be art or let nothing else after the established unbeatable classics.

Put another ~10 years of work into it and you might make some noise friend

Good post. I haven't read Moby Dick yet, but I have read A Brief History of Seven Killings twice. Joyce said the universal is contained in the particular, and James errs a little too much toward the particular. It's very much about Jamaica, and its perilous politics and history. It's also too sprawling in a way Faulkner, Joyce, and, say, McCarthy avoid. They tell small, localized stories and draw lofty philosophical conclusions from them. Seven Killings is a great systems novel in the vein of Dickens, whom he cites as an influence, and will be a great memento of modern society's justified scrutiny of the ruling class, but it's not subtle enough.

>If we continue this trend of "anything can be art" then i say this: either allow anything into the canon regardless of it's dubious status as even literature (much less literature with actual merit) or close it forever to prevent Tao Lin and similar lads turn it into nothing.

Fuck no. This mindset gave Bob Dylan a fucking Nobel Prize, and I love Bob Dylan. My problem with contemporary literature is that there are plenty of writers willing to suffer for their art, but not enough wanting to swallow their vanity and write something that consciously tries to be 'beautiful.' If you are indeed okay with Dylan entering the literary pantheon, then you should theoretically have no qualms with Lin being admitted too. Both are bards of their time, though Dylan's reach is rightfully broader imo. Everyone wants to be a Hemingway because it's easier to describe something than to comment on it.

I'm not really concerned about the Nobel prize, as so many of them are barely recognized as canon.

Therefore, i don't really have a problem with Dylan getting the nobel, but if i had, it's because i find Dylan's poetry to be overwhelmingly mediocre.

Also, you really oughta read Moby Dick. is right, it's a real masterpiece and absolutely timeless despite being a snapshot of a bygone era.

>kalevala
>viking

I remember this meme. What's he been up to lately?

I sort of used the Nobel as a measure of what constitutes literature. I was trying to say that Dylan and Tao Lin come from the same artistic tradition. They're concerned with chronicling the times, rather than the aesthetic pursuit like Melville was, and we shouldn't thus say the former is now the literary gold standard because the latter has hit a plateau- at least I hope it's only a plateau and not a dead end.

Problem is, literally everything these days is political. Writers aren't interested in genuinely examining society anymore, they see what they want to see and write to conform to their beliefs.

No on examines things honestly anymore. They look at something and think "how does this confirm my beliefs?"

Oh, i do agree with you there. My problem with Lin is that like you stated, all he really does is take a literary photograph of sorts of the time, with no real literary narrative (i.e. an exploration of themes through characters and a plot). Same reason i don't really like Kerouac. Where Burroughs had some really hilarious biting satire and timelessly insane narratives, as long as more sombre, introspective works like The Cat Inside, Kerouac just kind of recorded his road trips, and these days it comes as rather quaint (not helped by Kerouac shitty rambling prose that he the fucking balls to say is "inspired by bebop") which is why he's nowhere near as well remembered as Burroughs, despite being one of the holy trinity of beat writers.

My point when saying that "either let nothing or everything in" when regarding the canon is not to let literary anything be canon, that's ridiculous. Rather, allow things that would normally not even be considered literature (despite their writing merits) into the canon, or at least recognized literature, because in modern times where a extremely talented author can rot in the internet while the best sellers are flavour of the month at best.

Ah, I see what you mean. I thought you were proposing we DO open the floodgates to shit tier literature for the sake of simply continuing the canon. We agree that's the worst case scenario.

Kerouac is a little bit different to Lin. I actually think Taipei is miles ahead of On the Road. It actually explores the mental state of it characters. Kerouac is just 'this happened, then that happened.' But even then, Lin is, to a degree, just regurgitating and updating the same old postmodern angst that's been around since DeLillo. There's not much wiggle room in that regard. The bottom line is: Yes, modern life is hard. Literature has to go beyond that, and that is precisely the vacuum which now needs filling. I would actually put Burroughs in the same vein as Faulkner, Nabokov, et al- he shaped the world around him in his art rather than being shaped and manipulated himself.

Yeah, that's exactly my point. Either let things that might not even be considered literature as long as they have the writing merit into the canon, or close it indefinitely until an era of more worthy literature comes along. Opening the floodgates would not only be accepting modern mediocre writing, but devaluing all the timeless classics by putting it along side them.

Writing about modern western life is inherently pointless, because what themes can even possibly be explored in that? What resolutions can the characters reach other that it's not an ideal or even good way to live? No new Dosto will come from such a narrative.

>he shaped the world around him in his art rather than being shaped and manipulated himself

Pretty much, per example, Burroughs sound collages kind of provided a jumping point for several music genres, and industrial in particular basically outright came from his in all but practise, even the Throbbing Gristle lads stated so.

...

>Writing about modern western life is inherently pointless, because what themes can even possibly be explored in that? What resolutions can the characters reach other that it's not an ideal or even good way to live? No new Dosto will come from such a narrative.

Eh, Dostoyevsky was a writer of his time too. From what I have read of his life story, he was pretty much a normal guy trying to write his way out of a crisis of faith that had struck the entirety of Europe. We have no Dostoyevsky because everyone is fine with affirming the decadence and general horribleness of our times, but no one is willing to suggest solutions because that means making yourself vulnerable to criticism or even scorn. David Foster Wallace is the closest we've had to a modern day Dostoyevsky, but he was too bookish and not intimate enough with the experiences he wrote about.

On a slightly related tangent, I think the only way to break this impasse facing literature is to write about what it seems no one wants to write about. In this case, it's internet culture and the crippling irony it promulgates. That day we can see words like 'alt-right', and 'SJW', and not instinctively smirk at them is the day we'll have found our next Dosto. I'm sure people laughed at the Underground Man too, but it doesn't change the fact people like him existed, and that someone needed to write about them.

>Dostoyevsky was a writer of his time too

True, so was Joyce and Burroughs and Faulkner and Nabokov.
Thing is, their time didn't have this mind numbing, utterly mediocre (and mediocrity is less stimulating than actual horribleness, as a Poortuguese i can tell you that) post modern, ironic denial of reality, and as such they could explore themes in their fiction, despite (or maybe because) being rooted firmly in their times.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

wat

I'm sorry for being anal about this, but I distinguish Dosto from those writers you mentioned and I cited before. Dosto was a one of a kind because he not only captured the feeling of living in 19th century Russia, but also engaged with the social issues of his time. I recall Nabokov saying his translators were very kind to him, which really underscores how important the substance of his work was in lieu of consistently good prose. Dosto took his situation at face value and tried to rationalize it, at least after Notes from Underground (White Nights and his earlier works are more journalistic). If we lack great individual prose writers, for whatever reason, we have a whole generation that's angry and looking to get even.

All that's required is someone brave enough to admit that these weird times where someone like Donald Trump occupy the oval office are not an aberration, but a logical development in the progress of history. I don't mean to make a political statement on Trump's character, but it's worth noting the political climate that accommodated JFK could not begin the comprehend the possibility of someone as gregarious as Trump sharing the presidential title. What has changed since then? Beyond economic reasons, why do young people flock to him? These are the questions the literary establishment should broach instead of muh middle class angst.

Not anal at all, i agree with all of that. He did engaged in social issues of his time, making it timely but they're books still deal with timeless issues, like, per example, a lot of the Bible allusions in The Brothers Karamazov, as well as to other literature. Yeah, it's timely, but it's still managed to explore themes of guilt, through the form of moral guilt illustrated by Ivan.

Like said, he was such a great writer for being both timely and timeless.

Per example, Naked Lunch is timeless, but the satire is mostly lost on us because it's firmly about the issues in 50s America. Likewise, Lolita is also an example of this. Read the novel closely and you'll note the contrast between the rosy, carefree, squeaky clean surface of postwar American society and its rotten, vicious core. Lolita herself a good example: on the surface, she's a cheerful 12-year old girl who loves milkshakes, movies and other innocent pleasures; inside, she is deeply miserable.

>Per example, Naked Lunch is timeless, but the satire is mostly lost on us because it's firmly about the issues in 50s America. Likewise, Lolita is also an example of this. Read the novel closely and you'll note the contrast between the rosy, carefree, squeaky clean surface of postwar American society and its rotten, vicious core. Lolita herself a good example: on the surface, she's a cheerful 12-year old girl who loves milkshakes, movies and other innocent pleasures; inside, she is deeply miserable.

Good point, when I think of these novels I think of their aesthetic merit, but they are incisive too. But I don't think we've exhausted the possibilities of this type of literature as you suggested. We just lack writers willing to take their surroundings seriously and with compassion, speaking as a Millennial.

We just lack writers willing to take their surroundings seriously and with compassion.

Perhaps. I think i start to see your point. After all, the stories in Dubliners are largely quite plotless, just kind of observational pieces about the people of Dublin and the multiple ways they subtly trapped themselves in unhappiness. So it should be possible for someone to do the exact same to our current generation, all it would take is a writer as skilled and well read as Joyce (as allusion don't come from skill alone), where the kind of literature i was suggesting would take place in not necessarily alien or even just fantastical settings, but completely fictional ones, with elements from the real world (instead of the normal real world with some fantastical elements present in magical realism and it's genre shit counterpart urban fantasy). Per example, The Unholy City by Ligotti is quite obviously based on Detroit, where the lad comes from, but it's more of a completely fictional location (it's described as using humans as a language to write "the big news" per example) with elements from Detroit.

Maybe all we need is that theoretical writer, that can treat our time and generation like the other writers i mentioned treated theirs, it's just that i think it's unlikely that will ever happen, and even if it did, just looking at the books section in a store or supermarket makes me belief that such a writer would be quite obscure.

I think the perception that we don't have authors who have the epic vision to attempt a masterpiece is a bit of a fallacy.

Generally the notion is that literature has taken a "problematic" path, where authors are less engaged with the tradition and the themes that it brings, and rather write overpolitical stuff that usually has a cringeworthy bias to it, or generally comes from a generic/edgy angle (like millennial ennui, etc). The problem with this is that it mostly ties itself to shallow themes that don't touch on the more eternal and moving themes that the historical greats have managed to attain.

But I have to believe this is a fallacy. It is not like the tradition has been censored. We still have people reading Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Mann. Those works are still being published en masse, and are in fact probably easier to attain by virtue of sites like Amazon and efforts of companies like Penguin to mass produce classics to the point where in one trip downtown I can get a selection of the greatest authors of all time for $200. Additionally, increased literacy coupled with this mass production means there are likely more readers of the great works than have ever been, and while not everyone who reads Ulysses might understand it meaningfully enough to inspire them to write, this has been historically true and we still probably have more people who can appreciate these books than ever before, given sheer quantity of readership.

If, then, there are many great authors, then where are they? Why can't we name an epic tome that's been released in the last 15 years that can stand up to the last generation's works, like JR, Gravity's Rainbow, or Underworld?

The truth is that I think there is no market for them to be recognized. Historically speaking, in the 18/19th centuries great authors would be recognized by the few who were able to read them, because only so few were able to get into literature. And even among the educated elite there was still trash being produced, see the novels of Chivalry in Don Quixote. Then in the 20th century an academia began to form as the masses became literate, and they were able to recognize the great authors of postmodernism -- see the cult popularity in academia of authors like gaddis and barth.

I think now the perception from outside is that academia has become infected with the type of shallow authors I talked about above, blinded by small politics and cheap analyses. I don't know if this is actually the case, but it's the sense we are given at least on Veeky Forums. That being said -- if we take anything on Veeky Forums seriously we're pretty much retards.

Either way, the problem is less that works aren't being written and more that we lack an easy way to find out about them. The postmodernists have had a lot of scholarship written about them and are still being read because they transcend the time they were in, which I guess we fear the politicized or cliched stuff written today won't. (1/2)